seems to have gone for round fifty in the battle of the mothers. Dad says it’s like Waterloo—”a damned close-run thing”—then disappears to the golf club. His answer to everything these days,’ she added, with an unwonted hint of bitterness.
‘Well, you can’t expect him to take a passionate interest in hemlines, flower arrangements and tiers on the cake.’ Rhianna tried to sound soothing. ‘He probably thinks it’s his duty just to keep quiet and write the cheques. Besides,’ she added, ‘knowing that he’s going to have to give you away very soon now and watch you disappear to Cape Town must be preying on his mind, too. Maybe he needs time and space to deal with that?’
‘It’s going to be hard for me too,’ Carrie admitted unhappily. ‘Oh, Rhianna, Simon and I—we are doing the right thing, aren’t we?’
Rhianna’s heart lurched. ‘In what way?’ She tried to sound casual.
‘The new job. I sometimes get the feeling that Simon’s having second thoughts about it. He’s been so quiet over the past few weeks. Yet when I ask him he says everything’s fine.’
Rhianna bent over her case, letting a swathe of waving mahogany hair hide her sudden flush. ‘Then probably everything is,’ she said constrictedly. ‘And don’t forget that it’s only a job, Carrie, not a life sentence. If it doesn’t work out, you move on.’
‘I suppose so. But Diaz probably wouldn’t be too pleased about that.’
‘And is the maintenance of his goodwill really so vital?’ She tried to speak lightly. ‘Or just a habit?’
‘Well, he has been incredibly kind,’ Carrie said. ‘After all my parents could never have afforded a place like this, and Diaz has let us live here all this time.’ She sighed. ‘Although that’s coming to an end quite soon, as I expect he told you.’
‘No.’ Rhianna straightened. ‘No, he didn’t mention it. But we’re hardly on those terms.’
‘Oh.’ Carrie looked at her, dismayed. ‘I thought maybe things had improved a little in that quarter—especially as he offered to fetch you from the station. Simon volunteered, naturally, but Diaz reminded him he was supposed to be getting his hair cut in Falmouth, and said he’d go instead.’
‘Yet another of his many acts of kindness,’ Rhianna commented unsmilingly. ‘So, what’s happening about the house?’
Carrie shrugged. ‘Apparently he’s coming back here. To settle, would you believe? Mother thought, from something he said in passing, that he might be getting married, but there doesn’t seem much sign of it. No announcement, and he certainly isn’t bringing anyone to the wedding. In fact he may not even stay for it himself. Not with his new toy to play with.’
‘Toy?’
‘His boat.’ Carrie rolled her eyes. ‘Windhover the Wonder Yacht. Or that’s how Dad describes it. Like the best kind of floating hotel suite, but powered by a massive engine and moored down at Polkernick. He brought it round from Falmouth the day before yesterday and he’s sleeping on board, which has saved Ma having hysterics over the bedroom arrangements here, because usually it’s all change when Diaz comes to stay, and as he wasn’t expected there’d have been uproar.’
‘Of course,’ Rhianna said. ‘The master must have the master bedroom—however inconvenient.’
But at least this boat might keep him at a distance, she thought. Maybe that’s where he was driving off to just now? I can but hope.
‘Well,’ Carrie said tolerantly, ‘you can hardly blame him for wanting his own space. It is his home, after all, even if he hasn’t spent that much time here in the past. And now, to Ma’s horror, he wants it back, and she’ll have to give up being Lady of the Manor.’ She grimaced. ‘Which she’ll hate.’
But she’ll go down fighting, Rhianna thought, remembering Moira Seymour’s bleak gaze meeting hers a short while ago, from the sofa in the drawing room where she’d sat, poised and chilly as ever, in a silence that had been almost tangible.
‘Ah, Miss Carlow.’ The cut-glass voice had not changed either. ‘I trust you had a pleasant journey?’ She’d added coldly, ‘Caroline tells me she has put you in the primrose room.’
All the attics full, are they? Rhianna had asked silently. The oubliette filled in?
However, she’d smiled, and said, with her best Lady Ariadne drawl, ‘It sounds delightful, Mrs Seymour. I’m so glad to be here.’
Then she had turned, still smiling, to the woman sitting opposite. ‘Mrs Rawlins, how lovely to see you again. You’re looking well.’
Not that it was true. Widowhood had put years and weight on Simon’s mother, and given her mouth a sour turn.
‘I hear you’re making a name for yourself on television, Rhianna?’ As opposed to soliciting at Kings Cross, her tone suggested. ‘I find so few programmes of any substance these days that I tend to watch very rarely, of course.’
‘Of course,’ Rhianna had echoed gently.
‘Tea will be served in half an hour, Caroline,’ her mother had said. ‘Please bring your guest to join us,’ she’d added, after a brief hesitation.
Rhianna had been glad to escape upstairs to the designated ‘primrose room’, which turned out to be as charming as its name suggested, its creamy wallpaper and curtains patterned with sprigs of the tiny flowers, and the bed covered in a pretty shade of leaf-green.
Moira Seymour might not be her favourite person, but Rhianna couldn’t fault her choice of décor.
Now, she said slowly, ‘Your mother’s bound to find leaving here a wrench. But it’s an awfully big house for two people.’
‘True,’ Carrie agreed. ‘But an even bigger one for a determined bachelor like Diaz. Unless, of course, he does intend to bite the bullet and become a family man.’ She paused. ‘Did you ever see him with anyone in particular? The times you ran across him in London, that is?’
Rhianna stared at her. She said jerkily, ‘Did he tell you we’d met there?’
‘He mentioned you’d been at some bash together.’ Carrie shrugged. ‘Something to do with insurance?’
‘Apex, the company sponsoring Castle Pride.’ Rhianna nodded. ‘But it was a very crowded room, so I didn’t notice if he had a companion.’ My first lie.
‘And you were both at a first night party for a new play, weren’t you?’
‘Perhaps. I don’t recall.’ Rhianna was casually dismissive as she put away the last of her things. She looked at her watch. ‘Now, I suppose we’d better go down to the promised tea. But you’d better explain to me first why the swords are crossed and the daggers drawn. I thought Margaret Rawlins and your mother were friends?’
Carrie sighed. ‘They were never that close,’ she admitted. ‘You see, the Rawlins’ cottage was originally a second home, and Ma doesn’t approve of such things. Cornwall for the Cornish and all that—even though she and Aunt Esther were both Londoners. And the fact that Mrs Rawlins has now moved down here permanently hasn’t altered a thing.’
‘But
